Sorry Bing, Samsung’s sticking with Google as its default mobile search engine

It looks like Samsung isn’t going to use Bing as the default search engine on its mobile web browser after all. That’s according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, which says Samsung paused an internal review of whether the company should replace Google with Bing on its in-house Internet Browser.

Samsung’s Internet Browser, which comes pre-installed on Samsung phones, has long used Google as its default search engine. As reported last month by The New York Times, Google employees were “shocked” to learn that Samsung had been contemplating a switch to Bing, putting at stake the $3 billion in annual revenue that the search giant gets out of the deal.

According to the WSJ, the smartphone maker apparently thought that switching to Bing wouldn’t cause too much of a disruption, given that most Samsung smartphone users (including myself) don’t use its in-house browser anyway. But now Samsung is backing away from the change over concerns of how it could affect its relationship with Google and the market’s perception of the move.

We don’t know why Samsung wanted to make the switch to Bing in the first place, but it’s possible that Microsoft’s rapid expansion into AI played a role. However, in recent weeks, Google has been ramping up its efforts to put AI-powered features in its search engine and has made its Bard chatbot available to everyone not on its waitlist.

This doesn’t mean Samsung will never make the switch to Bing, though. The WSJ reports that Samsung “isn’t permanently closing the door” on using Bing as its default search engine in the future.